


Of Not-Yet Broken Things

by downtheroadandupthehill



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mr. Gold hears the Savior's name for the second time, he nearly comes apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Not-Yet Broken Things

He was lucky he hadn’t fallen over into the street when the onslaught hit him.

_Emma_.

He’d heard the name before, carefully stored it away, catalogued it where it belonged. And somewhere, after all this time, it remained--only now to stab him like a knife in the chest, twisted through the ruins of what had once been a heart. Twenty-eight years--passing before his eyes, and never knowing--and here she was.

_Emma_.

_The Savior_.

Mr. Gold had always been a solitary man. No friends, no family--but then so few of Storybrooke’s inhabitants were lucky enough to have any of those things, anyway. Running his deals, collecting rent on every building in the town, maintaining a pawn shop on the side with overpriced items, some so mysterious that even he didn’t know where they came from, what their purpose was.

But it was different now.

After his encounter with the pretty fair-haired newcomer-- _looks just like her mother_ \--the thought crossed his mind before he even knew what it meant--Mr. Gold staggered in the direction of his home, bugger the shop for the day.

He remembered a spinner from another world, desperate and cowardly. The pain in his leg-- _car accident_ \--throbbed, and his mind supplied a new explanation-- _ogres_. Ogres, massive and fanged, burning down homes, smashing in the skulls of villagers with fat wooden clubs. The spinner had been lucky to get away with a mere broken leg, though the bones had never reset right.

The spinner had a family, too. A lovely wife with dark red curls--she’d left him, though that wasn’t the ache that hurt the worst. The knife in Mr. Gold’s chest was twisted again, this time with malice. A beautiful brown-eyed boy, braver than the spinner ever was.

_Baelfire_.

He wasn’t sure where the name came from. _Baelfire_. An odd name, one of the oddest ones that Mr. Gold had ever heard. But he tried it on his tongue, mouthing the words--the spinner was always a coward, he didn’t dare to speak it aloud--and it felt _right_. 

For some inexplicable reason, Mr. Gold felt tears at the corners of his eyes, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.

_Never, at least in this world._

In this world the people of Storybrooke wondered if Mr. Gold even had a heart, any feelings, the capacity for sadness or joy. He always sat at the counter of his shop, taking inventory, thumbing through the money-- _little green paper, how quaint_ , he thought for the first time--that people handed him each month so that they’d have a place to live. And now, at least he knew, he did. Though he swallowed hard, forced the tears away.

The war continued.

He remembered a dagger, silver and wavy, and promises of unfathomable power. The desire swelled in the spinner-- _I’ll never be a coward again_ \--until he saw the glimmer of the his skin, felt the shadows chewing on the corners of his heart. But then the sharp, delicious thrill of magic coursing through his fingertips.

_The power to protect Baelfire_ , _my Bae_ , thought Mr. Gold.

And he saw the boy, so fearless, moreso even than the all-powerful Dark One, leaping into the glowing green void, the rabbit hole to another world. He heard the cackling of fairies, high-pitched, like the tinkling of church bells, but _wicked_ somehow, in a way that Mr. Gold realized, but could not yet understand. And the Dark One--still the cowardly spinner--hung back, clinging to the dagger that bore his name.

_Rumpelstiltskin._

And a promise, a vow, that he would find his boy again, through spell or curse, and everyone else be damned.

Mr. Gold unlocked the front door of his house, braced himself between his cane and the door knob. His head spun, but he managed to open the door, stumble inside. He felt drunk--feverish and disoriented--but his mind moved far too fast, the images passing by in glittering flashes that left him in a daze. Mr. Gold briefly wondered if he’d dabbled in hard drugs in his youth--but Mr. Gold, he found, no longer had a past, no longer had anything but a shop and some petty deals for worthless pieces of green paper.

But Rumpelstiltskin had a past.

Mr. Gold grabbed the tea kettle he’d left on the stove that morning--lukewarm water was no matter, but the familiar action of drinking even sub-standard tea would comfort him, he thought. From the table, the same cup he’d used that morning, used every morning. The smooth porcelain in his hand.

He jumped, hands trembling, and he would have dropped the cup had he not suddenly clutched it to his chest. In an involuntary action, he ran his fingers around the rim of the cup, felt a tug at the flesh of his index finger. A glance: some beads of blood dripped from his fingertip. A glance now at the cup.

A small chip in its side, one that he’d never taken notice of before. He wondered how he’d never cut himself before upon it before now.

Another flood of crippling memories. A woman, with ivory skin and trusting blue eyes. Sitting on the edge of a table, falling off of a ladder into his arms.

A kiss, full of promise and good.

Rumpelstiltskin broke everything in the room, nearly, and now Mr. Gold felt his own arms shaking with the threat of violence. But Rumpelstiltskin had saved the teacup, and Mr. Gold held it even tighter now, as tightly as he’d held the dagger to save him from the void that took his son.

He remembered her retreating back, as he’d sent her away. Better to send her away in hatred than to rip out her heart with love, for the sake of the curse that would bring back the spinner’s Baelfire.

_The Curse_.

A woman with dark hair and red lips, baring her teeth in a menacing smile. She’d had to rip the heart out of someone beloved, enact the curse of Rumpelstiltskin. She’d told him once that his--another name, one that he struggled to reach-- _Belle_ , was dead. And he was more than happy to see the Queen suffer now, as she’d once so relished his unhappiness.

The curse, the one that would bring him back to Baelfire. The puzzle pieces set themselves together in Mr. Gold’s-- _no, Rumpelstiltskin’s--_ mind. And he wanted to destroy things, shatter smiles, burn down villages. Rumpelstiltskin was a demon with a flair for destruction, but Mr. Gold, thankfully, was more subtle.

And he was willing to wait.


End file.
